Google Doodle honours Sake Dean Mahomed, the India-born 'shampooing surgeon'to King George IV

NEW DELHI: Google Doodle celebrates Sake Dean Mahomed whose story leaves one fascinated with the life of a man who was born in Patna, Bengal Presidency, British India and lived to achieve many firsts in the United Kingdom.

Mahomed is most popular as the man who opened first Indian restaurant in UK, named the "Hindoostane Coffee House" in George Street, near Portman Square, Central London. He was just 25-year-old when he opened the restaurant in 1810.

The coffee house described by an early London restaurant guide, "hailed it as a place for nobility to enjoy hookah and Indian dishes of the highest perfection."

However, the restaurant declared bankruptcy just two years later but that did not stop the entrepreneur in Mahomed to give up.

He went on to open a luxury bathhouse in London and became the man who introduced 'shampoo baths' in Europe. Mahomed's father belonged to the Nai(barber) caste and worked for the East India Company who also knew alchemy. Mahomed at a young age learned to make soaps and shampoos—a product which was common to Indians.

The bathhouse named "Mahomed’s Baths" was based in Brighton and served to the elite Englishmen who came to get therapeutic head massages and steam baths. He nicknamed the technique as "shampooing" inspired by the Hindi word champissage meaning “a head massage.” The technique became a regular part of England royalty's lifestyle. Mahomed's clintele included Prince of Wales, George IV and later William IV.

But this is not where Mahomed's fame stops. He then wrote a book in 1822 titled "Shampooing or Benefits Resulting from the use of Indian Medical Vapour Bath", which went on to become a bestseller. He was the first Indian to write a book in English language.

But before Mahomed became an entrepreneur in London, he worked as a surgeon in the imperial army. After his father's death, Mahomed was taken under the wing of Captain Godfrey Evan Baker, an Anglo-Irish Protestant officer at the age of 10. He served in the army of the British East India Company as a trainee surgeon.

In 1822, King George IV appointed Mahomed as his personal ‘shampooing surgeon’, which greatly improved his business. A portrait of Mahomed hangs in the Brighton Museum, commemorating this man who helped merge the cultures of his two homelands.

Born as Sheikh Din Muhammad, the man of many firsts had fallen in love with Jane Daly, an Irish girl from a Protestant family. At that time it was illegal for Protestants to marry non-Protestants therefore Mahomed converted to Anglicanism to marry Jane. They moved to Brighton, England, at the turn of the 19th century. The couple had seven children. Mahomed died in 1851 at 32 Grand Parade, Brighton.

Google in its note for Mahomed wrote, "A man of many talents, Sake Dean Mahomed was an entrepreneur who made a name for himself by building cultural connections between India and England. On this day in 1794, he became the first Indian author to publish a book in English and later, to open an Indian restaurant in England—ushering in what would become one of Great Britain’s most popular cuisines. Mahomed went on to find success as the “The Shampooing Surgeon of Brighton,” opening a spa in the British seaside town that attracted the rich and royal."